"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Intoxication as a Defense

Some states by law allow intoxication as a defense to a criminal charge, although there seems to be a recent trend among legislatures to repeal such statutes where they are on the books.

At least one ancient Greek lawmaker would have viewed such a defense as ludicrous. Diogenes Laertius 1.4.76 (tr. R.D. Hicks) writes about Pittacus:

Among the laws which he made is one providing that for any offence committed in a state of intoxication the penalty should be doubled; his object was to discourage drunkenness, wine being abundant in the island [Mitylene].